Four Letter Words
by soloscribe
Summary: Set during 2.9 "Gone Daddy Gone" as Maura sits in the dining room, reflecting on yet another intrusion on her life.  Character study and some angst as she struggles to stay in control. One shot. reviews are wonderful.


_Character musings from 2.9 "Gone Daddy Gone." This was a lot of fun to write, and I have to thank the writers of the show and the incredible Sasha Alexander for inspiring this one. She's been particularly amazing this season. I own nothing. Maura, Patty Doyle, Tommy, & the rest are the brain children of Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro and TNT. Reviews are beautiful._

Maura can feel the bite of the plastic cutting into the skin of her wrists, and while she knows it isn't good for circulation, it keeps her distracted from losing it. She won't give the man watching them the satisfaction of crying. And in any case, she's too angry to cry right now.

From her seat, she can barely see the edge of Patty Doyle's head, and she glares at it. She hates him, and the passion with which she hates him surprises her in her more objective moments. Right now, however, she doesn't have very many objective moments.

Earlier, when Maura was examining his shoulder, it had occurred to her how easy it would be to nick an artery. Just so. With the slightest flick she could have killed him outright. Many might have said it was justified. She could have cost him the use of his arm, permanently. But _first do no harm_ has been ingrained into her, and she knew Jane would say that she was too good of a person to be able to live with herself afterwards. In moments like this, Maura wondered how good of a person she really was. What good really meant.

She hates the possibility that Doyle might be telling the truth this time. Were she more objective, she would let herself realize that he hasn't lied to her, yet. He never has, and she hates that it makes her remember the little partial lies her adopted family has told her all her life. She hates that this man, who needs more medical attention than she can offer, has looked after her in ways that never occurred to the two people who reared her.

Sick of where her thoughts are leading her, she turns as best she can, now hating that sympathetic look that Tommy is offering her. It's very Rizzoli of him. For all of what Jane calls his 'screw up' ways, there is a gentleness in him. It makes Maura wonder how he survived prison life. Of course he asks if she's okay first, and she has a half moment where she thinks she might laugh because obviously he hasn't realized how moments like this—mob leaders invading her dining room—have become nearly common occurrence in her life lately.

The next questions were inevitable, and she answered them with the shortest number of possible words. It's not like her, and she can tell that Tommy knows that. He doesn't know her like Jane, or even like Frankie and Angela, but she's usually more inclined to techno-medical-babble in moments like this. She's not sure why it's so hard to find words right now.

She hates Doyle, and she hates that he thinks he can pop into her life on his own terms, all while keeping her totally in the dark about the things she wants to know. It's too much to handle, just after Ian, and she suddenly realizes that Ian is far too much like Doyle. The live by their own code, and how Freudian has her life become? Will she always be falling for these men that live apart from everyone else, making their own codes, and taking what they feel they need at her expense? What nascent part of her brain as a baby absorbed this—this deep connection to what she can never hold onto and certainly can't control? Is this some sick cycle she'll repeat for the rest of her life, or is this why her psychology professor said it was never a good idea to self-diagnose?

Maura knows she is going to lose her mind if she keeps going like this. She's not sure if she'll scream or cry, but she's scrambling for control because she sure isn't going to lose it with Doyle's man standing not ten feet away and trigger-happy. They were safe while the mob leader was awake, but he's sleeping uneasily now, and she's not going to take her safety for granted. She definitely isn't going to answer the questions behind Tommy's concern with an audience. Maybe not ever.

Straightening as much as a person can when bound to a chair, her eyes fall on the chess table. Hate is like chess, and she can map out the pieces and moves with deliberation. "Bishop to D-7 captures the move." After a slight pause, she adds, "Check."

They can't move the pieces, hands bound, but it's something to keep her might off of where she doesn't want it to go.

Tonight, however, she can't catch a break, and Maura hears the gasping breath before she's ordered to help. With a huff of irritation, she tosses back, "Like this?" She lit the fuse, but Tommy got the pop when he tried to defend her and ended up getting backhanded.

Before the situation can get any further out of control, she settles on the couch, reaching for the face of the man who fathered her. His skin is clammy, and she knows that propping him up even a little will not do much except ease his breathing slightly. Maura's not really sure how he managed to go through stitching and her attempt to immobilize his arm without anesthetic or passing out altogether.

Life is a four letter word, and it pulses just under her finger tips. She can't help but think of Charles Hoyt and how easily he sliced life apart, just so, with the tiniest flick of a wrist. One transected artery.

Doyle is stirring, rousing out of the unconsciousness that his body is longing for. More than anyone, she is fully aware of all of the medical help he should be getting. She wonders how much medical attention he's ever had in his lifetime—certainly never in a hospital. The eyes open, surprised, and she stiffens as they finally blink in recognition of where he is and who she is.

"You look a lot like your mother."

"Who is my mother?" They are the words she has asked herself over and over these last months since she learned who her biological father was. As a child, she occasionally wondered, but now the question erupts from her. Not knowing is frustrating, and she's stopped caring if the answer will be one she doesn't like. Nothing short of serial killer could be worse than a biological father who heads the Irish mafia.

He evades again with, telling her that she would like her. It makes her want to spit in his face because he's assuming things again. Assuming he knows her, that he is part of her life, when he's not. He only thinks he is. She wants to scratch and bite and scream. The most hurtful reply she can muster is, "Did she love you." And she hopes the answer is no. Because the question she can't answer is which is worse: being fathered by cold blooded killer who runs the Boston underground or being mothered by someone who could love someone like that?

Love is a four-letter word, and Maura thinks these days that _love_ could be the worse curse of all.

"She did, but you would still like her." The words feel like ice water thrown in her face, and she's struggling to form words again. Hate is another four letter word, and Maura detests that sometimes love and hate can seem so close.


End file.
